Better Cocking Experience

Cocking was the demise of my SDW attempt - I spent the night awake with a stomach bug which meant that I was unable to progress to day 2 on the bike. However, it looked like a good area to ride in, so we decided to follow a suggestion from C & M a while back to do a day ride in W.Sussex. Goldfish found a route from Cocking from the Rough Ride Guide SE book. 17 miles-ish - can't find my forerunner atm to put in the proper number... Just Husband, me, C, M & Goldfish.


Gorgeous day - bright sunshine, not hot, virtually no breeze. The chalk terrain was so much easier than earlier in Sept as it hasn't rained heavily for a couple of weeks. The route didn't disappoint - quite a few climbs for M (aka the whippet) to zoom up, some fab descents, mixture of farmland, deciduous woodland, conifer forest and glorious downland (esp close to Goodwood). I enjoyed leaving the navigation to the boys.



Husband took out his SNFS (Shiny New Full Susser) for the first time & apart from a harder saddle, got on well with it. He reckons it's going to take a little while to get used to bumpy downhills where he's used to getting feedback from the

back wheel - whereas now that's transformed into suspension bouncing. I can't really comment as I completely chickened out & walked the long descent he was talking about!

No punctures - but I accidentally killed a rodent that shot across the track under my wheel. I convinced myself it was a large mouse but Husband (who had the lovely job of finishing it off - broken back meant it was beyond recovery) reckons it was a young rat - yuck yuck yuck.

After the ride, we retired to the Moonlight Tea Rooms in Cocking for a very pleasant lunch in their garden - proper tea in proper teapots!

Other stuff - gym on Friday where my knee still didn't feel up to 30mins jogging so I did 10mins instead plus more time on x trainer. I tried a new Nautilus machine - weird split treadmill that you walk on with each half switching incline each stride - odd! Apparently it burns more cals than running - not entirely convinced. Also used lat pulldown and weights rower.

Lots of gardening on Saturday - including digging over the tomato bed at the allotment. Cycled to work today.